When the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together, and one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. "Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?" He said to him, "'You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.' This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: 'You shall love your neighbour as yourself.' On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets."
Matthew 22.34-40 (NRSV)
The lawyer here is someone who specialized in Mosaic law (all the stuff laid out in Exodus and Leviticus and so on). The Pharisees are trying to trap Jesus, to get Him to say something they can point to as being definitively wrong, and thus discredit all of His teachings and ministry. It didn't work.
Hear, O Israel: The Lord is our God, the Lord alone. You shall love the Lord your God will all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might. Keep these words that I am commanding you today in your heart. Recite them to your children and talk about them when you are at home and when you are away, when you lie down and when you rise. Bind them as a sign on your hand, fix them as an emblem on your forehead, and write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.
Deuteronomy 6.4-9 (NRSV)
Jesus summarized this above, but He also expanded upon these concepts in other teachings. Christians are called to first, love God with everything we are. Part of this means internalizing scripture, knowing God well and intimately, and showing our faith in everything we do. If we have a true, living faith, then it will be obvious in the way we live our lives, conduct our business, and treat other people. After all, "they'll know we are Christians by our love." ("They'll Know We Are Christians by Our Love", written by Peter Scholtes, © 1966 F.E.L. Publications.)
You shall not hate in your heart anyone of your kin; you shall reprove your neighbour, or you will incur guilt yourself. You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against any of your people, but you shall love your neighbour as yourself: I am the Lord.
Leviticus 19.17-18 (NRSV)
This is more interesting, because here in Leviticus we have an admonition to love our families and our fellow believers, while in Luke Jesus expands this to encompass all other people.
Just then a lawyer stood up to test Jesus. 'Teacher,' he said, 'what must I do to inherit eternal life?' He said to him, 'What is written in the law? What do you read there?' He answered, 'You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbour as yourself.' And he said to him, 'You have given the right answer; do this, and you will live.'
But wanting to justify himself, he asked Jesus, 'And who is my neighbour?' Jesus replied, 'A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell into the hands of robbers, who stripped him, beat him, and went away, leaving him half dead. Now by chance a priest was going down that road; and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. But a Samaritan while travelling came near him; and when he saw him, he was moved with pity. He went to him and bandaged his wounds, having poured oil and wine on them. Then he put him on his own animal, brought him to an inn, and took care of him. The next day he took out two denarii, gave them to the innkeeper, and said, "Take care of him; and when I come back, I will repay you whatever more you spend." Which of these three, do you think, was a neighbour to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?' He said, 'The one who showed him mercy.' Jesus said to him, 'Go and do likewise.'
Luke 10.25-37 (NRSV)
"Mercy" is compassion and forgiveness, shown when we could do the opposite. So that is also love. Love isn't how we feel (though it is certainly also that), it is how we treat others. And that treatment is what Jesus is explaining to the lawyer here, alongside defining "neighbour".
See, back in Leviticus the command was specifically about Israelites loving other Israelites. They were further commanded to keep themselves apart from the surrounding culture, to not intermarry with non-Israelites, and to focus on God and His commands. Jesus didn't come to destroy the law, He came to fulfill it, and if you look at all of His teachings and His full ministry as it is described in the Gospels, you will see that He did not contradict anything. All of His teachings encourage us to more closely adhere to God's commands, though He does point out where things had gotten lax or too strict for whatever reason. (I am currently reading John Stott's Christian Counter-Culture: The Message of the Sermon on the Mount and this is something he goes into in detail. I will save that in-depth exposition for when I write up my notes on it.)
So let's go back to that first and greatest commandment, to love the Lord your God with everything you are.
What does that mean, exactly?
I think Deuteronomy described it well. We love God by internalizing His commands, by knowing Him well, and by showing our faith in our lives.
Let's look at each of these in a practical fashion.
Internalize God's commands.
The first thing that comes to mind here is memorizing scripture. When Jesus was tempted by Satan in the wilderness, He was able to resist the temptation through reciting scripture (Deuteronomy 8.3, Deuteronomy 6.16, and Deuteronomy 6.13).
The actual verse says "all your heart, all your soul, and all your might", so I want to quickly talk about each of these in relation to internalizing God's commands.
Scripture often uses "heart" to mean "mind", so memorizing scripture makes sense in this context. Learn scripture so well that you can pull it out when you need it. Keep it uppermost in your thoughts.
This book of the law shall not depart out of your mouth; you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to act in accordance with all that is written in it. For then you shall make your way prosperous, and then you shall be successful.
Joshua 1.8 (NRSV)
"Soul" seems to be tied to who you are as an individual. I think this means that God's commands ought to be tied to your understanding of your self, your identity. Really, as Christians, our faith should be first in our list of identities, and honestly I suspect our faith is the only one that really matters in the end. Memorizing scripture and thinking about it all the time will help solidify your understanding of it and how it impacts your life; and in this way, you will also learn more about who you are in Christ and who you are Becoming.
As for "might", my study Bible indicates that the word used could also be "capacity". I think this means that God doesn't expect more of us than we can do, but also since we are meant to give all of our capacity, He does expect all of us to be His. He alone knows what our true limits are, and science has actually shown that we expand our abilities through repetition. So we begin by memorizing a few scriptures, and then as we go we increase how much we can memorize at once, and eventually we're able to recite whole books of the Bible on request.
Just make sure you're doing your best to understand the verses you're memorizing, because knowing all of scripture is useless if you don't know what it means and how to apply it to your everyday life.
Know God well.
We get to know someone by spending time with them, so spend time with God.
Scripture is one way we can know Him; taken alongside prayer and worship, we can know God intimately.
Intellectual knowledge of God is obtained through studying scripture (both reading it and really working to understand it). There is so much in scripture to learn and so much that is difficult to understand, so I highly recommend finding a good, solid theologian to help you in your studies. The Bible is all God, all the time, so use that resource to the best of your ability.
A more emotional knowledge of God is found in worship and in prayer, both personal and corporate. When we worship God, when we praise Him and give Him the glory He alone deserves, He responds. And that response is often powerful. The same can happen with prayer. It can be much easier to know God personally through prayer than through worship, because prayer should always include a time of listening, of waiting for Him to share something of Himself with us. And here is where that intellectual knowledge comes in clutch, because it can be really easy to get pulled off track into the weeds by our emotions. We have to be careful that we don't allow ourselves to stray from the path He has set before us, carried away by how we feel about the issues of the day.
And, again, we are limited in how well we can know God, because we are human beings and God is vast. We cannot contain Him. But we can know Him as well as we can, and He will always meet us where we're at. God is merciful, and He offers us unending grace. And I think our capacity for knowing God will increase as we Become.
Show your faith in your life.
I feel like this aspect of loving God is an outcrop of the other two: the more we internalize scripture and the better we know God on a personal level, the more we will show up in the world as people of faith.
Intellectually, this is knowing logically what we ought to do in any given situation, because we know the commands of scripture so well and because we know God's heart so intimately. And so our behaviour in the world is different from the behaviour of non-Christians. We approach everything from the angle of "what would Jesus have me do" and we do it, even when it's hard.
As for identity, we claim Christ crucified and don't hold back for fear of how others will respond. I am a child of God. I am a Christian. I am not apologizing for it, because it is a wonderful thing to be. (And there is more to say on this topic, but it will come when I discuss John Stott's book, mentioned earlier.)
How well our faith is demonstrated in our lives is, of course, limited by our internalization of scripture and our knowledge of God. But as we Become, we will naturally show more and more how our faith affects our lives. This is a beacon to the world, even if we are not as strong in our example as we feel we ought to be. Showing our faith is one way we sow the seeds of belief in non-Chrstiains. And when we fail spectacularly at showing our faith in our lives, we succeed only in pushing them further away from the Church. (And this is the main point of the book I am reading.)
I think that loving our neighbour is actually part of showing our faith in our lives, and I will tackle that in my next post on this subject.
Until then,
Peace & Blessings.
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